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Thereforeā¢ 2017 Update 2:
Breaking Change: UTC for DateTime Properties
Until Thereforeā¢ Update 2, DateTime properties were inconsistent regarding the time zone they used. Some properties were using UTC, some local time. With Thereforeā¢ 2017 Update 2 all DateTime properties have been changed to use UTC, including query conditions.
Query conditions can only make use of the time values in conditions made on meta data fields from the TheIntQueryField enumeration like LastModified and CreatedOn.
This is a list of all DateTime properties that were changed from local time to UTC:
TheDocumentProperties.CheckedOutOn
TheDocumentProperties.CreatedOn
TheDocumentProperties.LastModified
TheRecycleBinQuery.DeletedOnFrom
TheRecycleBinQuery.DeletedOnTo
TheWFInstance.ProcessStartDate
TheWFInstanceInfo.ProcessDueDate
TheWFInstanceInfo.ProcessStartDate
TheWFInstanceInfo.TaskStartDate
All other DateTime values have not been changed because they either already used UTC in previous versions or the time value is ignored.
New Properties
TheDocumentProperties.CreatedByDisplayName
TheDocumentProperties.CreatedByUserNo
TheDocumentProperties.CheckedOutByDisplayName
TheDocumentProperties.CheckedOutByUserNo
TheDocumentProperties.ModifiedByDisplayName
TheDocumentProperties.ModifiedByUserNo
New Methods
Thereforeā¢ 2017:
New feature: Tab Control Fields
The new field type TheCategoryFieldType.TabControlField is meant for better organization of categories and case definitions. Like label, table and image fields, tab controls do not hold any index data values.
Every tab control consists of one or more tabs. Tabs are represented by the TheTabInfo class. Each tab has a TabNo, defining the order the tabs were added to the tab control, and a Position, containing the order for displaying the tabs.
The new TheCategoryField.ParentFieldNo property can be used to determine if a field is located in tab control field. This property is now also used for column fields in table fields and thereby replaces the old BelongsToTable property. The BelongsToTable property is hereby deprecated but still compatible and will return field numbers for table fields only.
New feature: Workflow Errors
Errors in automatic workflow errors can be queried in the Thereforeā¢ Navigator in Thereforeā¢ 2017. To perform a query returning error information with the API, execute a workflow query with TheQuery.ExecuteWorkflowQuery in combination with the new enumeration value TheWorkflowFalgs.ErrorInstances.
Using the flag AllInstances will also return error information while DefaultInstances and RunningInstances won't.
In the TheQueryResultRow the workflow error information will always be present in the positions TheQueryResultRow.Count - 6 to - 9.
The classes TheWFInstance and TheWFInstanceInfo have the new properties ErrorString, ErrorInfo and ErrorTimestamp to access detailed information about the error.
Errors can be cleared with TheWFInstance.ClearError for a single workflow instance and TheServer.ClearWorkflowError for multiple workflow instances.
New feature: Multi Language Categories and Case Definitions
With Thereforeā¢ 2017 it is possible to configure the visible text in categories and case definitions including fields and tabs in different languages. For this the concept of the connection default language has been introduced.
By default the connection default language is the default UI language selected in the Thereforeā¢ Navigator. This setting is only loaded on application startup. It can be overwritten by TheServer.SetLanguage. This parameter can only be changed when not being connected to the server.
When being set on a server object, loading a TheCategory and TheCaseDefinition with this server object hands over the connection default language from the server to the loaded object and from these to every TheCategoryField and in further succession to every TheTabInfo object. The properties Name and Description of TheCategory and TheCaseDefinition and the property Caption of TheCategoryField and TheTabInfo will now return their value in the connection default language if available.
The connection default language is not dependent on the language resource files installed with Thereforeā¢ as it only refers to the category and case definition configuration.
The language for the properties can always be change by calling SetCurrentLCID (find directs links below) in all four classes. When using 0 as parameter, the currently used language will be changed back to the connection default language.
Additionally each property has a Get and Set method with an LCID parameter to get and set values in the corresponding language independent of the currently used language.
With the GetAvailableLCIDs method in the TheCategory and TheCaseDefinition classes, a list of LCIDs the corresponding object has been configured with is returned.
New feature: Language sensitive query conditions
Opposing to the multi language feature for categories and case definitions, language sensitive query conditions are partially bound to the language resource files installed with Thereforeā¢ on the machine executing the API code. For this new overloads of the TheQuery.Execute and TheQuery.ExecuteAsync with an additional LCID parameter.
Language sensitive conditions parsing consists of two different parts: Thereforeā¢ query operators and macros (as they can be used in the Navigator) and language sensitive formats of values like dates and the decimal point.
Operators and macros can now be accessed in the different languages by using TheQuery.GetValidOperandMacros and TheQuery.GetValidOperators. Any LCID can be used here. If there is no language resource file present for this LCID, the default will be used. The macros and operators returned are always in the same static order.
Executing a query with the LCID as parameter will parse conditions with macros and operators for the given LCID. If there is no language resource file present for this LCID, the default will be used. Dates and decimal numbers will also be parsed with the default formatting settings for this LCID. By default the date and decimal point format configured by the user (can be changed under Language in the Windows Control Panel). These settings will be ignored here.
Please note: To date there is a bug in Microsoft Windows preventing the standard Hungarian date format to be parsed correctly.
New feature: Design Object Lock
The new feature to lock objects like categories and case definitions in the Thereforeā¢ Solution Designer leads to a breaking change in the API. This breaking change will cause compatibility problems with existing solutions that modify categories and case definitions.
Categories and case definitions loaded with TheCategory.Load and TheCaseDefinition.Load can not be changed anymore. Executing SaveChanges will always fail. To be able to change categories and case definitions loading has to be performed by TheCategory.LoadForEdit and TheCaseDefinition.LoadForEdit. This will put an object lock on the loaded category or case definition. Executing SaveChanges will remove the object lock when saved successfully but will not put a new lock on the object.
With TheCategory.Unlock and TheCaseDefinition.Unlock the lock can be removed as well.
New Classes
New Properties
TheCategoryField.ParentFieldNo
TheWFInstanceInfo.ErrorTimestamp
New Methods
TheCaseDefinition.GetCurrentLCID
TheCaseDefinition.DeleteTranslation
TheCaseDefinition.GetDescription
TheCaseDefinition.SetCurrentLCID
TheCaseDefinition.SetDescription
TheCategoryField.GetCurrentLCID
TheCategoryField.SetCurrentLCID
TheMultiQuery.Execute (new overload)
TheMultiQuery.ExecuteAsync (new overload)
TheQuery.Execute (new overload)
TheQuery.ExecuteAsync (new overload)
TheQuery.GetValidOperandMacros
TheServer.Connect (new overload)
TheServer.GetCategories (new overloads)
TheServer.GetObjects (new overload)
Thereforeā¢ 2016:
New feature: Forms
The new Thereforeā¢ Forms feature is implemented as Therefore documents without files in combination with new options for displaying category fields and properties. To represent these new options in the API the new TheDisplayProperties class has been introduced. Every TheCategoryField object has a new property DisplayProperties with this type. The TheCategory class has the BackgroundColor property only.
The new image field type (see TheCategoryFieldType for reference) the TheCategoryField class has a new property ImageDocNo containing the document number of the image used. The image document has to be in the system category Templates with the template type set to "Index Dialog Image" to be valid.
New feature: Category Design
Categories and case definitions can now be created and changed with the API. Most properties of the classes TheCaseDefinition, TheCategory and TheCategoryField have been changed from read-only to read-write. For more detailed information take a look at the new methods and properties for these classes below.
To be able to add fields from referenced table to a case definition or category the TheReferencedTable and TheReferencedTableColumn classes have been introduced.
New feature: Query Dependent Fields
With the new TheDependentFieldsQuery class the content of referenced table fields and their dependent field can be queried. This class' functionality is similar to the data look-up dialog introduced with Thereforeā¢ 2014.
Performance Enhancement Options for Documents
There are new performance enhancement options for operations with documents.
By default saving a document is automatically reloading the document again like the Viewer is doing it. If the document is not needed anymore after it has been saved this is not necessary. Because of this a new overload for TheDocument.Archive with a new parameter to specify whether the document should be reloaded or not has been introduced.
The new overloads for TheDocument.AddStream, TheDocument.AddStreamEx and TheDocument.AddStreamsEx have an additional parameter to specify if the file should be added as content file or not. Content files are not added to the compound file. Adding a file to the compound file needs some processing time. Usually it is better to add files to the compound file that are well suited to be compressed for faster data transfer though like text or Office documents though. Compressed image files like TIFF, JPEG and PNG are already compressed so that not adding them to the compound file can increase performance.
The API recognizes some of these formats and might automatically add a file as content file automatically without the need to set the content file parameter. But if the parameter is set to false (do not add as content file) the file will be added to the compound file.
In addition to the new option when adding a new file to the document there is a new overload for TheDocument.Retrieve with a new parameter to specify if content files should be retrieved separately or if they should be integrated to the compound file before the retrieve.
Retrieving compound files separately is faster but sometimes it might be necessary to have the compound file contain all files (e.g. when the complete compound file is sent to a user via email).
New Workflow Interface
Please note that the old workflow interfaces have been removed from the documentation and shouldn't be used anymore. They will stay compatible with Thereforeā¢ 2016 and future versions unless stated otherwise.
New Classes
TheDependentFieldsQueryResultRow
New Properties
TheCaseDefinition.SubCaseFieldIx
TheCategoryField.DisplayProperties
TheCategoryField.SelectFromDropDownBox
New Methods
TheCaseDefinition.SetSubCaseFieldIx
TheCategory.SetSubCtgryFieldIx
TheCategoryField.SetImageDocNo
TheDocument.AddStream (new overload)
TheDocument.AddStreamEx (new overload)
TheDocument.AddStreamsEx (new overload)
TheDocument.Archive (new overload)
Thereforeā¢ 2015 Update 1:
New feature: Recycle Bin
The recycle bin as it can be experienced has made its way into the API. The recycle bin can be searched by using TheRecycleBinQuery. Documents and cases can be restored by using the TheServer.RestoreDeletedObject method and they can be completely erased by using the TheServer.EraseObjects method.
New Classes
New Methods
TheServer.RestoreDeletedObject
Thereforeā¢ 2015:
New concept for permissions
Because of the introduction of new permission types necessary for case management the 32Bit value range we were forced to change the concept for providing the permission values. The enumeration ThePermissionType and the interface TheRightsServer are not declared deprecated as well as all properties and methods that make use the enumeration ThePermissionType.
As a replacement we have introduced a new extended TheRightsServer interface with 64Bit integer values as parameters, a new class ThePermissionConstants that is replacing the enumeration ThePermissionType, a replacement for all properties and methods making use the enumeration ThePermissionType and the new class TheAccessMask.
To ease working with the new class ThePermissionConstants an instance of it is always present as a property in the TheAccessMask, ThePermission and ThePermissionList.
All already implemented functionality will stay compatible with Thereforeā¢ 2015 and future versions as long as not explicitly stated otherwise.
New concept for identifying objects
With the new enhanced export and import functionality a new way of identifying objects has been implemented. All objects that can be exported and imported with the Thereforeā¢ Solution Designer have a GUID. While the GUID can't be seen anywhere in the user interface it is present in several API classes.
These classes are:
Due to performance reasons it is not possible to load objects by the GUID.
New Classes
New Methods
TheCaseDefinition.Load (new overload)
TheCategory.Load (new overload)
TheDocument.AddStreamToThexFile
TheDocument.AddStreamsToThexFile
TheDocument.GetThumbnail (new overload)
TheDocument.Retrieve (new overload)
TheMultiQuery.GetNextResultRows
ThePermissionList.AddAccessMask
ThePermissionList.GetAsAccessMask
New Properties
TheFullTextQuery.FuzzySearchLevel
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.AccessMask
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.Extension
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.HitCount
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.MatchedWords
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.Modified
TheFullTextQueryResultRow.Relevance
ThePermission.PermissionConstants
ThePermissionList.PermissionConstants
New Events
